


Sing the Aria of the Wanderer

by Binario



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pocket Monsters: Diamond & Pearl & Platinum | Pokemon Diamond Pearl Platinum Versions
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Gen, Is this an AU or a headcanon?, No one is having a good time, Sinnoh Creation Myth, i took a concept and ran with it, my take on the distortion world, we shall never know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:35:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25053238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Binario/pseuds/Binario
Summary: There’s a bone-deep weariness that mars the great dragon’s very breath. Every twist of its body, every undulation of a crooked streamer is tainted by a profound desolation. The incarceration in this realm is atemporal, yet time is what it has had the most of. Irony, for its constant companion to be the errant dominion of its sibling. A sheer, amaranthine lapse to ponder away in isolation..Giratina is banished. That should have been the end of the problem.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 22





	Sing the Aria of the Wanderer

**Author's Note:**

> _"The legend of Giratina has been all but forgotten but to a few...  
>  The legend told of a world on the other side of ours. This world.  
> Why does this world exist? Why is Giratina here all alone?"_
> 
> -Champion Cynthia

The concept of a beginning is so very difficult to grasp.

They are aware of just being, existing as primordial laws that ruled reality. They had no care for the reasons of their presence, nor could they achieve anything close to an actual consciousness. The nature of primordial forces is not that of a sentient being, but rather an intention, an amalgamation of forces that exercise their intention in space. A force is uncaring of its surroundings not by choice, but because there is nothing that can be called a cognition.

At the end, how can a natural law concern itself with self-introspection and temporal awareness when there’s nothing to introspect on?

They are not aware of the beginning of their existence as primordial forces, but they are conscious of the first thoughts as actual beings.

Out of the eternal flow of nothingness, there came the first feel of life. They remember elation at the sheer rush of sensation. The caress of feeling upon a corporeal body, the capacity to interpret reality around them. It was their very first experience of the blooming reality. The flow now had a _beginning_ , a marking in space that started their current phase. The _now_ had a meaning for the first time in their eternal presence; they were aware of themselves as individuals. The _past_ was a forming memory of togetherness, of intentions so deeply coiled together that all of them were a singular force in the balance of the emerging reality. They were now aware of their power, of the deep thrum of life that had evaded them for so long. They were beings now, but their might expanded as far as reality could reach, as deep as the hum of the newborn universe.

They had the novel experience of blinking open their eyes. It was an admirable achievement for creatures that had just started encountering the concepts of being alive. They were starting to exist in a physical reality that was just breathing its first moments. Their eyes –they were rather dumbfounded as to what eyes _were_ , never mind their _function_ – saw each other for the first time. A moment of recognition, of bone-deep familiarity passed between the three beings. They could feel each other in the space around them and in the freshly untangled knots that used to bind them together.

The awakening was becoming clearer as time started its dominion. They could just discern the differences in their forms and the feel of their presence in the universe. The space around them was slowly filling with colors and shapes. This happened as they were just comprehending the meaning of a color. Reality settled around them as their awareness sharpened. They now saw the blue and purple of their skin, the gold on their heads, the red of their eyes. Colors gave them a new understanding of their own individuality as their respective powers solidified. They could turn to look at the universe around them, and they understood that movement was something that they had never done until that very moment. They could feel themselves aware inside a physical body, and yet their perception of being was still stretched out, spanning eons and lightyears away in all directions. It was a disconcerting situation, and thus they were not sure as to how to interpret themselves. A natural law, everywhere around and confined within a living, breathing body cannot hope to understand itself by the simple introspection of a very limited time.

Their senses expanded until they felt it. The blazing presence of otherness. They turned as one – _as they would have, had their togetherness ruled over them still_ – and were cowed by the force of the being before them. They recognized the imprints that the being had left on their consciousness and the space around them. The stared expectantly at their creator, and they felt the forming of questions in their minds. The novelty of it, of thinking and processing, overwhelmed their need for answers with a new wave of confusion.

And then there was a solid surface underneath them. The very first sounds that they made were of surprise as their claws clicked against solid matter. They stared in wonder at the sudden creation, testing the reality that was mass. One of them – _and it felt the individuality more keenly than the other two, so much that it started to think as itself and not they_– wiggled helplessly on the physical manifestation. It realized that it had no claws upon which it could support itself. The second sound it made as a living being was of distress.

The first touch that it felt was a gentle muzzle laid over its head. The distress loosened its grip as the Original One, the creator, offered quiet support. It gazed upon the Original One in gratitude but noted that the creator was hovering instead of standing. It focused its power into its body. Reality around it shifted, parted, and then it was hovering above the surface. Its third sound was a thrill of joy.

The Original One looked upon it with something akin to pride. The other two had gotten over the excitement of limbs and instead chose to try to emulate their sibling. The Original One landed on the surface and their awakening was complete.

_“You are the primordial forces of which reality is shaped. You have long slumbered as one, intangible possibility ruling over the nothingness. I now call upon thee, three instead of one, for it is time for a new reality to exist.”_ The Original One rested calm red eyes upon the purple-stripped sibling. _“Your first breath has given dimensions to reality. Know that you are Palkia, guardian of space.”_

Palkia thrilled an acknowledgment. It felt space gather around it as if joyful to be recognized.

The Original One gazed upon the blue-skinned sibling. _“Your first heartbeat has started the progress of reality. Know that you are Dialga, guardian of time.”_

Thrilling like its sibling, Dialga bowed its heavy head in gratitude.

Arceus regarded the final sibling _. “Your first thought gave solidity to reality. Know that you are Giratina, guardian of matter.”_

Giratina crooned its gratefulness. The three siblings saw one another with their new identities. They felt the bonds between them morph with their individuality, untangling the original binding. Reality around them shivered and stretched in response.

_“Know that you protect and nurture your fragments of reality,”_ Arceus declared. _“You were born to help the universe grow. Your very nature is no longer tied to the flow of nothingness, for now you are alive. May you learn now the reach of your powers and train into them. When you are ready, then the rest shall continue.”_

\---

The eons came and went, and the three mythical beings grew in strength and power. With the guidance of the Original One, together they achieved the full comprehension of their abilities. The universe soon bloomed with myriads of stars and galaxies, colors and large expanses of pulsing nebulae. Their very first creations were shared with familiar wonder, a shared thrill that warmed their very essence. Matter would burst into existence, Space would right an askew creation, and Time would polish and smooth it over.

Together, they reveled on the song of the cosmos, the melody of change. Their consciousness brushed and guided each other as they shaped the nothingness into light. They danced across reality birthing stars and rifts and the smallest of specks.

But as they saw their powers mature, their nature began to change. The balancing laws that they commanded still held the memories of the primordial coils between them, faded as they may be. They loved each other –in a very vague concept of love, as one might be fond of their own smile–but the inevitable evidence of their past drowned their hearts in anguish. They couldn’t forget the omnipotence of the beginning, or the mere seconds in which they could feel their togetherness before the separation. They yearned; though they didn’t understand what yearning was for. Emotions were an overwhelming concept for beings that were so much and so little at the same time. They recognized the turmoil reflected in each other’s eyes, and yet they didn’t look for solace with their siblings. A rotting unease bloomed deep in their hearts. Why would they, divine beasts that they are, ache for a closeness that was beneath them? Surely, their omnipotence was enough of a reward. Surely, the endless waltz of the universe was enough of a prize.

The uncaringness of the original forces, while morphed by the growth of their embodiments, began to bleed through.

It was subtle at first. Matter moved by micrometers, time rewound just a touch. Reality was so vast and inviting that such small changes wouldn’t be noticed for centuries to come. Time progressed and reverted as it saw fit. Space curved and stretched on a whim. Matter compacted and disappeared depending on a mood. They would occasionally find each other mid-change, suspicious, preying. They would stare each other down as their forces snaked across the galaxies. An ultrasound growl, the barest of impressions of fangs. Their presence was a warning, almost a demand.

A demand, but for what? Weren’t they all aspects of the same reality, even if they were no longer one? Why would they impose over each other? Even in their separate individualities, didn’t their powers coexist and grow stronger because of the presence of the others?

Yes, said the assurances of their creator.

Yes, said the tenderness of their living hearts.

_No_ , hissed the primal binding.

The imprints of their togetherness, never fully erased from their core, reeled every time their eyes crossed against a backdrop of stars. The uncaring need, the presence behind their actions, festered voraciously, increasing the friction between the three siblings until it would finally snap.

\---

The stars were the masterpiece of Giratina’s creations. There were so many possibilities of sizes and colors to pick from. It always enjoyed – _and wasn’t that such a wonderful sensation, the very favorite of all these new and puzzling emotions it had started to feel_ –the pulsing of energy that a new star emitted. It would leave clusters of new stars as it strolled through the galaxies, testing its dominion over matter to merge new elements into celestial bodies. It would rest amongst the nebulas and find tranquility amongst the buzzing energy of newly changed matter.

It was circling a particularly large blue star, the very first of its kind, when it felt Palkia tear a hole through reality. Giratina was used to the presence of its siblings, even if it felt a mild irritation when they crossed paths. It had been privy to plenty confrontations with its siblings. The sheer magnitude of what they embodied made it impossible for any of them to back down, to bow down before the others that were, in essence, themselves. The bindings inside grew teeth and waited.

Palkia huffed at the blue giant, shooting it an almost offended glare. Their claws twitched as if to rip another hole in reality. There was a haggard look to the Guardian somewhat akin to restlessness. Space twitched around them, as if undecisive whether to answer the being or stretch away from them. Giratina clicked low in query. It would, of course, listen to its sibling in peace, as it was its duty. The streamers on its back, however, curled warily.

The embodiment of space finally desisted its contemplation of the star. Their heavy head rose to its full might to demand the celestial body be taken down. Space rose, uneasy and dark. Expectant.

Giratina paused, looking back at Palkia with a sneer. Matter coiled, ready to spring at the blatant threat display. Its guardian fanned out its streamers in warning, red points glinting dangerously under the blue light of the star. The two beings regarded each other with white fury in their eyes. Reality fizzled and sparked where their respective forces overlapped.

The bindings bit down.

Giratina was pushed back, nerves on fire under a barrage of indigo, purple and black. Its streamers spasmed, feeling very much like the vibrations of new elements in the cosmos. It had once marveled at the song of creation whenever it had a direct influence upon it, but now the very same music only felt like agony.

It was yet another novelty in its life, this pain. It had never felt something so sharp, so deep into its very being that it felt like it could lose itself and never return. It tried to cry out, but nothing came out. Or perhaps it did, and the sheer inferno that was this new experience drowned whatever pitiful sounds came out of its gaping jaws. Time shredded and tangled around it. The force of it bend streamers out of shape, forced it to squirm in desperation to try and ease the all-encompassing pain.

It became conscious enough to feel fangs burying behind its head. This new pain was moot in comparison to the plasma burning though its veins, but the pressure was ever-growing. Giratina lashed out with its streamers against its attacker, catching Dialga – _and oh, had that been Dialga who attacked it? It had not felt the approach of its final sibling. It was very rare for the three of them to be together at the same time, and now it wondered if this was the reason_ –on the neck. The guardian of Time reared back as if to charge again but its roar was drowned out by the hiss of Space rippling, distorting and, finally, cutting through them as a pink blade of hyper-concentrated energy.

Giratina barely ducked beneath the jagged edge in reality. The dragon whirled around, pushing back the agony that rose with the exertion. It couldn’t spare more moments to this inconvenience, not when the forces of reality pulsed with ever increasing hatred.

It dodged, more out of panic than of conscious planning, to let Palkia barrel past, teeth first into the agitated borders of Matter. Giratina dove after its sibling, digging red spikes beneath purple markings with all the rage it could muster. Palkia roared in pain, shocked like its siblings into a stupor. Giratina wasted no time, ripping its siblings’ skin with spikes golden and red. Matter rose like a tide, shredding Space around it into ribbons. The unresisting force recoiled throughout reality.

Time swelled to meet them amongst the edges.

Giratina let go of its keening sibling to face Dialga head on. The blue guardian glowed with a building Roar. Dialga focused Time upon their sibling as they had already done, but, this time, Giratina was prepared. Matter answered its warcry to expand and bend and shift and, suddenly, Giratina was gone. Its sibling-turned-enemy’s power was still rippling against the waves of Dialga’s own power when Giratina reemerged between the folds of reality. It latched with fury on the blue guardian, digging gold mandibles on soft flesh. The guardian of Time roared its pain and the waves of its power shuddered too. Matter swarmed the tides of Time like it had done the peaks of Space. For the first time since the beginning, there was one primordial force over the others.

The bindings dug deep and reached out.

Any conscious thought, any capacity for rationality bleed out of Giratina as its pressure over its siblings grew. Matter lashed out across reality, tipping the balance to its favor. The universe shuddered, trembled, and ripped apart under the rampage.

Over the chorus of the imploding dimensions, the dragon roared victorious. Its newfound wrath bleed into the fabric of the universe –stretched thin and lacerated by the clash of deities– and hooked serrated teeth into the gaping edges. The primordial core burned bright as it overtook the consciousness that had dared defy its dominion.

They became everything, one and vast, spanning lightyears of boiling reality. The ancient threads hummed in familiar activity for the first time in eons. The sheer presence of their will commandeered the cosmos back into the timeless rhythm of nothingness. The sparks of order dimmed, cut off from the main sources of equilibrium in the universe. They reverberated far beyond the scope of their reclaimed pocket of reality, yearning for the missing threads to-

They surfaced as if starved for their individuality. They felt –or perhaps saw, or perhaps perceived with the last vestige of the shared connection to everything– the all-encompassing enmity, the raw intensity that subjugated the rebelling nothingness. With their screaming wail as they were ripped away once more, Giratina felt the universe shudder in anticipation and then–

It was thrown back, falling

Falling

d

o

w

n

into the dark void of senselessness.

\---

It would be a long time before Giratina regained awareness.

That millennia of soulless wandering were and will forever be a gaping hole at the very edge of its recollection. In this new world, there’s nothing but the distant echo of water that never falls. The jagged edges of cliffs float passively, as if untouched by the harsh fangs of time. Direction is meaningless; upwards or downwards lose their significance when gravity is but a distant dream.

Giratina will never remember those first lifetimes spend crooning for sympathy that will never come. Vacant red eyes are lost amongst the fiendish shades of vermillion and heliotrope. It never feels thirst nor it ever hungers, and yet there’s an emptiness inside it that compels it to keep going, keep looking. It spends decades searching the confines of this realm but only finds that it spans infinitely whichever way it chooses to look at.

It would be a long time before the frayed edges of its mind would heal.

Regardless, it does heal. But being cognizant inside the timeless prison is worse than an eternity as a vacant soul.

There’s no one to hear it, no stars to gaze upon in admiration. The water is never disturbed; no matter how much it tries to alter the caudal, the waterfalls remain firm in their paths. The bizarre islands will scarcely move when forced. The barren landscape never stops exuding hostility no matter how long the dragon inhabits it.

The true agony, however, is that it is hollow.

Giratina tried to reach out to the matter around it, only to cry out in terror when it recoiled from its touch in a visceral sort of pain. No matter how delicately it extended a hesitant prove, matter dissolved under the dragon’s influence. The melodies that it once wove into the cosmos were deaf to Giratina’s command. The dragon could feel its own influence present within matter but could barely grace it without it unraveling under its very eyes.

In its desperation, it had tried to manipulate the clear pillars of quartz that crisscrossed its prison. Upon its eventual disintegration, the former Guardian of Matter had had to bear witness to the dying howls of the stars that it had so lovingly nurtured.

Giratina would wail its wretchedness along the echoes of its withering creations for decades until its voice ran out.

\---

As demarked by its nature, the weeping will cease.

But what emerges from the rot, oh is that a thing to behold.

\---

There’s a bone-deep weariness that mars the great dragon’s very breath. Every twist of its body, every undulation of a crooked streamer is tainted by a profound desolation. The incarceration in this realm is atemporal, yet time is what it has had the most of. Irony, for its constant companion to be the errant dominion of its sibling. A sheer, amaranthine lapse to ponder away in isolation.

And ponder it did.

It has identified part of its hollowness as yearning. For what? What would it miss? What can it miss? Is it company, perhaps, of its own kin? But what good is kin, in the end, if all it represents is wrath and suffering? There was a time – _time, yes, but was time tainted by its sibling? Was it manipulated to create an illusion of halcyon days? What was real, back then?_ – when it knew the meaning of peace. Elysian mirages that were dangled so tantalizingly close to reach. An age when they would rejoice in the harmonies of the cosmos, fond of the connections between them, blazing their glory as far as their presences allowed.

_Fondness_. Were they fond of it? Giratina thinks that it once knew the meaning of the word. Fondness, familiar affection. How foolish, how downright asinine. Look where that got the great dragon. Fondness is but a malignancy, an abnormality that corrupts the very essence of a being. Fondness is illusionary; had it ever existed within the siblings and their Creator, the dragon wouldn’t be chained down to this nightmarish kingdom. This is the work of _them_ , divine beasts that they are.

Because, if there’s something, anything, that Giratina knows without a shadow of a doubt, it is that this life is divine punishment.

Guardian of Matter, dragon of creation, now messenger of the reaper of death. The discordant choruses of life aggravate it every time it ventures too close. The mourning for the beautiful symphonies is buried note by note with each century of festering ire. It knows that it is losing itself to the void – _the endless, endless void_ –, but the cruelty of the cage surpasses any lingering fear of change.

There’s nothing but fury for the creator that confined it, for the siblings that have forsaken it.

It will wait. The only thing that yet remains to be taken from him is the last familiar vestige of a simpler life. A fading memory of when it knew what joy meant.

It waits, and it will never forget.

\---

The mirrors come as if smelling a breaking point.

They hound the dragon. They are mocking phantoms at the very edges of its reach, flashing out of sight as soon as it notices them fully. The gleam of their empty surfaces fails to be appealing, but the thrill of a hunt sends a shiver down to its very heart. A mirror will appear upon a narrow ledge, another will materialize beneath the mute waterfall. They stay, still and tantalizing, up to the moment when the dragon descents upon them. They glint and disappear before Giratina can do more than stare at its own red eyes.

The aimless wandering transforms into an endless chase. This world, this horrible, horrible, distorted world becomes a playground. An eternal battlefield. A limitless hunting ground.

It learns to predict the mirrors. Where they’ll appear. How long they remain tangible. How fast they disappear. There’s always two just out of reach, but sometimes half a dozen shimmer to existence over the waterfalls and remote islands. It is as if they sense the dragon’s waning interest and slow down to entice the chase.

They learn, but so does the dragon.

Giratina loses itself in the unspoken game. It spends decades roaring after the faintest burst of light. The mirrors seem perpetual, always close, always by its side, but never enough. It would never be enough.

One day, Giratina catches one.

(It will never know if they grew tired of the pursuit. Or had they always been there, static, suspended on nothing while the dragon chased hallucinations through the realm? Had they ever been aware, willing participants of the game, or were they no more than the rocks suspended on midair?)

Giratina catches one. In an instant, reality shifts and warps. The prison realm swirls into a great vortex, ripping open the edges of the mirror until the glinting white is all that it can see.

The dragon falls, tumbling down the gaping maws of the crystal. It screeches in terror as its body contorts and stretches. It can feel bones snapping into new directions beneath its skin. It’s painful, tremendously so. It can’t even writhe in agony as its body rearranges itself into a new form against its will.

And then it stops.

And Giratina _feels_ again.

Cold. A coldness unlike any other. It sticks to its legs – _legs! It had never had legs before! –_ and sends a chill down its spine. Its claws feel the clinging cold on the stone. It makes them smooth and dark, like a void amongst the stars.

_Humidity_ , Giratina decides. It accepts the term as a theory, but the experience is baffling. Humidity was a concept it had played with when the stars had been finished–

_(No. It won’t linger on those moments. It won’t remember, it refuses to let in the howling despair of stars burning out, out, out, out)_

Further examination reveal that this is a cavern, of a sort. If Giratina extends its senses slightly, it can get the impression of several tons of stone between this chamber and…openness? It can feel a great emptiness above the cavern, but it’s nothing like the stifling otherness of the prison realm. This is new, but familiar. It feels like recovering a piece of itself that was long forgotten. It feels like light and stardust.

This feels like life.

The dragon lets out a keen of agony, the sound heart-wrenching as it reverberates far into the caves. It crumbles to the ground in a stupor. It has never felt such a pure, pulsing presence such as what it can feel surrounding it. The whole dimension shines under its proving touch like its eager to show off its potential. Giratina has made pools of stars and the flaming tails of comets, but matter so alive like this, so bright like this, so unmistakably _vibrant_ and _unique_ does nothing but rip more wounded howls from the dragon. It’s simultaneously too overbearing and not enough, never enough. It feels the hollow deep inside its bones fragment more, the raggedness of the shards flaring like live coals under the electric touch of matter.

(There’s something akin to a hunger, an insatiable need that takes root inside its heart. It yearns for the silky caress of life. It thirsts, and yet it drowns.)

It takes Giratina a long time to emerge from its delirium. It spends enough hours crumpled on the wet stone to understand that time, like everything in this realm, is a living, breathing thing. It has claws sunk deep into all that is tangible – there are hints of it in the air that cools the stone, in the water that drips incessantly. The ribbons of Time try snaking up Giratina’s legs, as if to take the dragon under its possession, as if to claim it like it has claimed this reality. This Time, this tame, pitiful thing, could never hope to compare to its Guardian. Giratina will _not_ bow down to such a poor imitation.

Time shrinks back, submissive, when the renegade dragon rumbles a warning. They have an understatement, then.

Giratina looks up thoughtfully. The new asymmetrical appendages on its back twitch when its mind wanders back to the great openness above. Were it the dragon of before the nightmare, matter would embrace it openly and create a path to the source of its curiosity. Alas, such things are nothing but bad memories, buried deep into the recess of its mind. Matter hisses under its influence, recoils from its presence like usual, and the great dragon cannot say that it is impressed. If its old nature will reject it even after it has grieved its loss, then it has no need for such a wretched thing.

The renegade dragon calls forth its fury and

~~screams~~

revels on the shrieks of reality as it is forced apart under its claws. Matter compresses, folds in half to allow Giratina passage. The cavern melts away into shadows to be replaced by a brightness so harsh that it forces red eyes to shutter closed, lest they be blinded on the spot.

Its senses explode.

There’s a warmth on its skin that reminds it of its beloved stars, but gentle, warmer. It’s pleasant in its bite in a way that’s achingly inimitable. The sensation is relaxing to the point of numbness but it’s welcome, nonetheless. A soft caress of coldness makes its new appendages flare open wildly. They flap on instinct as if they were designed for such purpose, catching a rising current and moving Giratina higher. It can hear a whistling as the cold touch rushes past, a new melody to add to its faded record. 

When it opens its eyes, the dragon keens for the colors that shine brightly under its gaze.

The land below thrums with life.

\---

Giratina spends a great amount of time admiring the everchanging hues. It first knew nothing of this new world aside from the very few concepts it carries from a previous life. But this land thrums with the history of creation and the secrets of its craft. It resists sharing the ancestral knowledge it protects but Giratina, banished or not, has the mark of a celestial deity coating its aura. The land can do nothing else other than surrender.

With a reluctant compliance achieved, Giratina touches down on a mountain peak and extends its mind.

The dragon learns the patterns of the leaves high up in the mountains. It tastes the spray of the ocean after a storm. It feels the pricks of snow landing on its skin, the scorch of fire under the sun. This world, this broad, harsh world, so full of wonder and amazement, feels endless in its gifts. The land offers memories and sensations as far back as it can. Giratina takes and takes as much as it can until it can croon the ballads of the seasons with a familiar ease. The everlasting knowledge warms the hollowness, but it does little to appease the yawning abyss inside.

When the dragon finally surfaces from the deep sea of sensations, it is no longer alone.

A flare of life, remarkably unique against the backdrop of the mountain, approaches its perch cautiously. Perhaps it presumes itself invisible under the darkening skies. The being freezes when bright red eyes swivel to intercept it. It’s a black creature, barely bigger than one of the dragon’s spikes. It has a very distinct aroma akin to guttering embers. Giratina lets out an inquisitive rumble that startles the creature once more. It hastily retreats back into the bushes and just…observes.

They remain staring at each other even when the stars become clear. A challenge of patience under the moon.

The dragon wins.

With hesitant steps, the black creature silently approaches. Glinting eyes don’t even blink as it crosses the distance between it and the gargantuan figure. A curious paw is raised to be delicately placed on aureate claws.

Giratina rumbles, and the sound elicits a shiver from its new companion, but it doesn’t flee this time. The creature lets out a shrill yip and pats the claw insistently. It’s small, diminutive even when standing so close to the dragon and yet, in its pulse, its very breath, Giratina sees the scatter of stardust, alive and brimming like it has never seen it before.

The creature lets out a shrill _dour? dour?_ , apparently asking the dragon something in its language. Giratina does not understand how to communicate with it. It never really had the necessity to _speak_ to any of its kin – a perk of being so interconnected as divine beasts to the point that conversations were more perceived than listened to. Here, with so many burning wounds hacking away at its very being, it wonders if perhaps there was a benefit to it.

For lack of a better method, Giratina croons the last star chorus it remembers, low and ululating. The small creature leans forward, enraptured, almost instinctively stretching towards the intruder that had not so long ago filled it with dread. It whines when Giratina stops, barking animatedly as if to encourage it. The dragon looks at it inquisitively but complies.

It sings and sings until the sun peeks over the mountains once more. It continues the concert as the land awakens and it becomes so enraptured in the beauty of its own song that it doesn’t realize the audience has grown.

When it comes out of the daze, panting in an exhilaration the dragon has not felt in eons, a whole chorus praise the performance. The little black creature had apparently summoned its pack, and then some. Giratina can see dozens of beings of many different shapes, all pulsing with the same stardust-coated fire of life. It sees the pulsars in the angles of feathers and fur, curled horns and long tails. They yip and bark and chirp in a cacophony of noise that should be discordant and yet.

And yet.

Giratina feels the cracks mend, if only a little.

\---

It spends so long in the mountain peak, singing out in its hollow voice from dawn to dusk. The dragon laments the loss of its original song, but the creatures don’t seem to mind. If anything, they become even more eager to listen with each passing day. They bring it offerings in the form of berries and multihued stones, some instinctual part inside pushing them to pay tribute to the passing divinity. Giratina doesn’t really understand their intentions, but it becomes reluctant to protest when it becomes evident that they’re dedicating a lot of effort to their gifts.

Chief of them all is the tiny black creature. It’s the most fearless of the group, trotting right up to the dragon until there’s barely any space between them. There’s a resolute light to its eyes as it spends month after month in the peak. It barks at the dragon, presents it with a myriad of things and beings, but its tone is not aggressive or demanding. Rather, it seems to be working towards a goal.

The day Giratina can finally pronounce its name, can growl out _Houndour_ in looping vowels, the dragon finally realizes that it was teaching it to communicate in the tongue of the land.

It’s a challenging task. Language had always been more about intent and projection than this physical experience. And yet, as the seasons come and go, as the little black creature sheds his name from Houndour to Houndoom, Giratina finds that this form of communication is a new song to feel the pulse of the stars.

The halcyon days had, of course, to find an end. Perish the thought that the exiled deserved even a minuscule sanctuary of peace.

The day is coming to an end, the leaves of autumn coat the valley below, and Giratina finds itself soaking up the dying sunrays. It will soon croon a hymn of farewell to the light, but it has time before Houndoom brings along his pack.

It stretched up wings of night, and a roaring fear stains the air with an unfamiliar stench.

“Hunters!” screech the rising Staravia. They shriek and ascend towards the clouds.

“Thieves!” yelp the youngling Houndours as they scramble to hide between its claws.

“Danger,” snarls Houndoom, bounding up to the dragon. “Extreme danger. Mire in your lands, divine beast.”

Giratina rises, mindful of the pups scrambling to find a new hiding spot. It melts into shadows as it hunts the uproar through the forest. It can feel the anguish in the land like a wound upon its skin. It tracks the commotion all the way down to the cliffs, and it stands perplexed of what it finds.

These are new creatures. Unique in their making, the stardust brilliant in a way that makes it think of nebulae glinting in the darkness. They talk to each other in a tongue that it does not recognize, but the dragon can read the aggression in the tenseness of their shoulders. They hold…things. Sharp things. Dangerous things, points of star metal that hum with the glistening lifeblood of prey.

Giratina slinks closer until it can see the torn white fur, and it finally understands.

The lands that had submitted to it have plenty of performers. Houndoom might be the leader, but the budding talent of creation went to the white-furred creature. Young and beautiful Absol, whose mournful howling sang of the changing moon in the twilight. Tranquil and serene Absol, who could rival the cadence of the Guardians of reality, whose eyes held the explosions of the newborn stars.

Melancholic and passionate Absol, who longed to learn the rhythm of the world far beyond the mountains, whose voice would never be heard again in this realm, whose swansong was lost to the ears of the beasts that pierced her snow-white pelt.

Giratina feels no pity as it unleashes its corroding presence. There’s no value in the lives of those who would crush starlit creatures beneath their heel.

\---

It’s the spark of war that condemns the land.

\---

A week later, the dragon emerges from deep slumber to find the mountain submerged in uncharacteristic silence. The trees whisper distressed nothings as it passes by, but no creature jumps to greet it. When it reaches the mountain peak, it finds traces of a battlefield and the discarded weapons of the mire.

It arrives in time to see the light abandon Houndoom’s soul and it _rages_.

The wrath that boils inside feels like the agony before the banishment. Back then, it had been primal aggression, a feeling so raw it had taken all of its willpower just to understand what it was doing to the dragon. Now, as it tears apart cities and destroys all traces of the nebulae-tainted beings, the anger is a bone-deep conviction that bleeds into its very core.

It feels like a promise.

There’s nothing the beats can do but perish.

Whole packs of them fall to its eroding touch. Matter shrieks deep inside its heart, but the dragon roars louder.

Giratina is surprised when the first non-mire being challenges it. A great fire creature, slightly bigger than Houndoom had been. It stands loyally by a demon’s side, stripped pelage rippling with a show of aggression. The swirling constellation that make up its soul flares out in warning. It seems to be buying time for the community to evacuate.

A foolish enterprise.

“Move aside,” the great dragon says, with its wings spread out to cover the sun.

“I go down with my master,” the creature snarls fearlessly.

So be it.

The bleeding stardust seeps into its skin and peel away the scarring around its shattered center. The cracks fall piece by piece as it bathes the region with its bloodlust. Giratina devastates what opposes it, and stalks those who think they can elude it. There’s no chance at clemency while it carves out lives from the land with a vicious cruelty. Why would they deserve mercy? Didn’t the pups beg for leniency when they plucked them from the mountains? What shall quell Absol’s unrest if not the parting cries of these beasts? Will justice for Houndoom be found anywhere if not in the destruction of the poison festering in the region?

The hunger pangs in its veins, guides the tearing claws to rip and rip and rip and rip and–

_It’s them._

Giratina keeps a list of sensations it can never forget. The fall of the first drop of morning dew. The murmur of rain as it drapes over the mountains. The crackling of fire during the dry season.

The hiss of reality as it bows down to its Guardians.

It lets out a challenging roar, pouring all the eons of acrimony in a single, rattling note. Time and Space howl back with twin vows of warfare. They don’t seem changed from the last moment it saw the siblings. They still carry themselves with the proud arrogance of youth, wielding their elements like they’re owed the honor, pushing and prodding against each other as if they can’t stand the existence of an equal. The looks they send it are of disgust and disdain. There’s a cold fury in their eyes as they assess the fallen sibling like they used to inspect the guttering cries of a rejected song. As if wondering, how _dare_ the broken thing come back. How _dare_ it taint our presence with its ragged touch. How _dare_ it still be alive, still listen to the thrum of the land, when it should be buried alive in a pocket of reality where no one would ever think of looking for the worthless creature.

Giratina surges forward, calling upon the feral tendrils of its burning power to tear the rolling edges of the Guardians. They recoil from the corroding touch with dismayed snarls and it drowns them.

Their battle etches deep gauges across the region. When they had battled amongst the stars, their powers had lashed the fabric of reality into an unrecognizable mess. Now, those galaxy-spanning powers are barely tapped into. Palkia uses their claws more than the blades of space. Dialga roars, but the bellow is not fueled by the fiery march of time. They are careful when they aim their attacks, and most of their monstrous strength is kept on a tight leash when they press the offensive.

Giratina has no such limitations.

The spikes on its wings mangle matter as they brush over rooftops and hills. It can feel the light snuffing out as its shadow streaks over the fields. Its kin try to herd it away from the powerless beasts, but it slips away just before they reach it and the chase starts anew.

It’s disconcerting, this perseverance. The other dragons fight with a ferocity not fueled by the primordial rage Giratina remembers. They seem to be trying to spare the mire infecting the region. This compassion goes against their nature. What else has the fallen dragon missed in all these eons? What had changed between the Guardians that they would be ready defenders, would ally together even with their eternal rivalry if it meant protecting this realm?

It reaches out like it hadn’t done since _before_ , pushing through the howling pain of a nature that rejects it to slip past the walls, past the defenses, deep within what makes the other dragons individual beings–

Their powers are halved, spread out through beings that are at once kin and not. Giratina can sense them, sharp pinpricks of faded divinity molding space and time to their whims. This is why it feels corrupted, why Time grew tame and submissive when it had first arrived in the realm. They have their elements, but they are also the protectors of a land they share with other lesser Guardians. How pitiful, how far have they fallen. Divine beasts who would barely spare a glance to a sibling, and yet this broken husk is so much grander than they are, so much more complete even with the gaping holes eating it away from the inside out.

Who is divine then, the hacked dragons or the rotten shade? Who is the puppet and who is the real winner at the end of the race?

Giratina can’t stop hooting in hysterical glee. Not when they hurl it back inside the eternal prison, not when it feels the forceful realigning of bones beneath its skin. It hoots and shrieks as it sinks past waterfalls and islands, broken mirrors and debris. It keeps hollering even as it curls around a twisting cliff, tightening coils around the stone until a spiderweb of cracks paint the material. The realm reels against the turmoil of the only inmate, and it feels like fundamental change.

\---

Even gods are not immune to madness.

\---

It waits.

Croons sonnets to the sunlight it can see through the mirrors, broken things that are marked with the voices of lost mountain creatures. It chases and is chased by creatures that are divine and not, both kin and strange prey. It tracks down its siblings through the cosmos, pulling them in when they least expect it. The great fallen dragon doesn’t always win, but when it does, it makes sure that the halved guardians understand how little they are in this realm that only it governs.

It will incite the rage of the Creator. Soon, it hopes. Until then, it will learn the discordant dance of this destructive power, sing the symphony of the starving fiend nestled deep within its wrecked shell as it nurtures the black ire to life.

Giratina waits in the distorted realm, and its empty halls echo with the doleful aria of the fallen dragon.

**Author's Note:**

> A rewrite of _Why?_ , because it deserves some serious polishing up. I never was even remotely satisfied with the mess that was the original, so I sincerely hope this makes up for how terrible my writing was back then.
> 
> This fic has been haunting me for months. I obviously took liberties with a lot of information from the canon, but I'm satisfied with what came out of it. I might be deleting the original now that this one is up.


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